Goodbye My Lover
by Katria Bloom
Summary: First installment in The Bedlam Series. Goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend, you have been the one, you have been the one for me. HD slash. Angst abound...


**Goodbye My Lover**

_Fic inspired by originallie and James Blunt's song 'Goodbye My Lover'. Enjoy._

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"Did I disappoint you?" Harry called after the blond who was storming through the flat, gathering up his things. "Or let you down?"

Draco came back to the bedroom, high points of fury rising on his cheeks. "You should already know the answer to that question. I was under the impression that I made it blatantly obvious"

"Please don't do this love," Harry begged, grasping Draco's forearms tightly. "Please don't leave. I didn't mean it."

Draco ripped his arms away and landed a punch squarely on Harry's jaw. "Don't you fucking touch me, you've lost that right."

Harry's knees buckled and he collapsed onto the bed, cradling his bleeding lip and blinking away burning tears. "Please don't...I didn't mean it..."

"Of course you meant it," Draco snarled, pulling luggage out of the closet and filling it with armfuls upon armfuls of clothes. "You wouldn't have said it if you didn't mean it."

"But I don't think..." Harry began, but was cut off when Draco threw a shoe at him with stunning accuracy.

"You bloody well do!" He interjected, his eyes stone cold to match the colour. "You've convinced yourself that I _need_ you, that I'm nothing without you. I can survive without you Potter, not that I can say the same of you."

Harry just gaped, the sharp tang of blood and tears filling his mouth.

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"_And what exactly are you doing, Draco?" Harry finally asked after his boyfriend's third trip from his flat with luggage._

_Draco dropped the bag he had tucked under his arm before planting his hands on his hips. "I would have thought that even you weren't that thick. I'm moving in, you dolt. I could really use some help with my things."_

_He Apparated away again and Harry followed, nearly tripping over a large houseplant. "You have a lot of shit in your flat, love. You haven't even lived here that long."_

"_I like buying things," Draco said simply. "Now you are about to have a lot of shit in your flat."_

"_Our flat."_

_Draco smiled and Harry's heart melted. "Yes, our flat."_

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"I don't need you Potter," Draco said through angry tears. "I don't need anyone but myself. I don't need your love, I don't need anything that you could possibly have to offer me."

Harry didn't know what to say. He took a hesitant step toward Draco and whispered, "But I need you. I cannot live without you, I...I don't know what I'll do without you."

Draco shoved Harry away from him and spat, "I reckon you'll find out soon enough."

Harry's entire body went numb. He felt as if Draco severed and exposed every nerve in his body. "No."

Draco paused as another tear slid down his cheek. "Yes."

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_There had been petty arguing, mostly about where the new furniture would go. Harry had eventually given in to what Draco wanted, which he noticed he had been doing rather frequently._

_The fighting had led to sex, as it usually did. In the end, after quiet breathing and trailed fingertips, Draco agreed to a compromise._

_As Harry began to slip off to sleep with his arms wrapped around the other man, he heard Draco whisper, "Why do you love me?"_

_Harry opened his eyes briefly, then said, "Because you love me."_

_Draco didn't reply._

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Harry pushed Draco against the bedroom wall, his pretty blonde head bouncing against the beige paint. "You aren't leaving me."

"Really?" Draco sneered. "You can't stop me. Do you have a brilliant plan to stop me?"

Harry didn't have a plan, and Draco knew that.

Draco stretched his pale neck, his eyes sliding closed. Harry watched as his pale eyelashes curled against his cheeks.

When Draco's eyes opened again they were dead. "You don't know what you want."

Harry's fingers dug deeper into the soft flesh of Draco's wrists. "You. Only you."

"Do you want me or need me?" Draco spat, trying to pull himself from Harry's grasp but finding himself unable.

The time it took Harry to respond was telling enough.

"That's what I thought," he hissed, nostrils flaring slightly. "Now let me go."

Harry only held on tighter.

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"_Would you laugh if I told you that you are my best friend?" Harry whispered against Draco's stomach._

"_Quite possibly," Draco admitted. "More than likely I would call you a liar, though. It's a rather drastic transition, from enemy to lover and best friend."_

_Harry just shrugged, letting his eyes slide shut as he drifted off to sleep, but only after whispering, "You weren't my real enemy, just the one I knew I could beat."_

_Draco didn't sleep that night._

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"Let. Me. Go." Draco snarled, pulling furiously against Harry but finding his strength wholly inadequate.

Harry twisted one of Draco's slender wrists and watched the other man's mouth fall open in pain. Draco arched away from the wall in a feeble attempt to follow his wrist to elevate the strain but it was impossible.

He made contact with Harry's hard body and felt him push back, forcing Draco back to the wall. Harry face was level with his, chest against chest, knee held over his groin.

"You aren't leaving me," Harry said shakily, his eyes misting.

"Not everyone does as you order them to," Draco said scathingly, trying to arch away from the wall again but only feeling Harry's knee grind hard into his crotch. He squeezed his eyes shut and took a few steadying breaths before continuing. "You should know this. I never did a damn thing you told me to. Never."

"You're going to do this," Harry whispered, loosening his grip on Draco's wrists but not quite letting go. "You're going to stay. Please stay. I promise that I'll change. I'll be better. Just please...please don't go."

Harry caught Draco's gaze and his heart sank. He was already gone.

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"_The newspaper says that because you 'took me into your house and bed, I am redeemed and you have forgiven me of my Death Eater sins'," Draco toned as he read from the Daily Prophet._

_Harry only shrugged, not looking up from his coffee. "People believe what they want to believe."_

_Draco folded the paper slowly. "Do you believe it?"_

_That comment, it seemed, warranted Harry's full attention. "What? Of course I don't believe it. You were never a Death Eater, not really anyway."_

"_That's not the point," Draco said as he threw the Prophet down. "I don't need your forgiveness. I don't need any of the wizarding world's forgiveness. The bloody paper makes it out to look like I need you to be accepted in civilized society. That's rubbish."_

"_Mmm," Harry said, adding another splash of cream to his coffee. "Pass the sugar, love."_

_Draco just left._

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A bead of sweat trickled down the hollow of Harry's spine, his heart beating so fast and hard that it hurt. His mind was racing but getting him nowhere.

"You can't keep me here against my will," Draco spat, his chest rising and falling sporadically with his quick breaths. "I'm not your property, or your prisoner. I'm not yours."

Harry's tears had stopped falling, so he could see Draco's face properly. Clear. Angry. _Broken_.

Draco licked his lips and Harry couldn't help but to allow his tongue to follow Draco's back into his mouth. He tried to memorize everything about Draco in that moment, his taste, his smell. He realized then that he was addicted to him. He also realized that Draco wasn't kissing him back.

Harry finally pulled away, a single strand of saliva stretching and finally breaking between their lips. "I love you."

Draco just lay his head back against the wall and grinned darkly. "No you don't. You don't have to pin someone against the wall to get them to kiss you."

Harry pulled away so quickly one would think that Draco had seared him with more than words.

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"_You can't be serious," Harry said with a snort._

"_I wouldn't have brought it up if I wasn't," Draco said rationally. "I just...I feel that way, sometimes. Like everyone thinks you shouldn't be with me because you are better than me. You deserve better than me."_

"_You need to stop reading the Prophet."_

"_Harry, I'm not kidding," Draco snapped. "Sometimes I even think you...you agree with everyone. Sometimes I look in your eyes and there is this distance there, like you're wondering how on earth you got stuck waking up to me every morning."_

"_You are a sight to behold in the morning, I must say," Harry said with a grin, but Draco wasn't deterred._

"_This is serious. Stop making jokes and pretending it isn't."_

_Harry stepped up to Draco and enveloped him in his arms. "Because it isn't. Dash what other people think. The only thing that's important is what I think, and I love you."_

_Draco furrowed his brow and said, quite softly, "And what about what I think?"_

_Harry only chuckled and said, "Of course. That's important too, silly Malfoy."_

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Draco finished his packing in silence, letting Harry stew in what he had done. He had dug his own grave and practically handed Draco the shovel to cover him up, and he hadn't even realized what he had done until it was far too late.

He hadn't even realized what he said had so much effect on Draco, hadn't even known that he was harboring those feelings until too many were pent up.

Draco zipped up his bag and shouldered it. "I'll be by sometime this week for the rest of my things. You might want to be here, make sure I don't steal anything."

"Take whatever you want," Harry said in a defeated tone, his flat green eyes trained on the spot on the floor where his tears were falling.

Draco tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. He was silent and motionless for a long moment.

"You need this Harry. You need this as much as I do. You know that."

Harry just nodded, another tear making a faint clicking noise as it hit the floor.

"It's not healthy."

Again, another nod.

Draco sighed and turned for the door, stepping into the living room and taking a deep breath. He picked his wand up off the coffee table where he had tossed it carelessly countless times before, realizing with a gut-wrenching feeling that he would never do that again, never toss his wand down beside Harry's on the table again.

It hurt more than he thought it would.

He prepared to Apparate but just before he did a weak, "I'm sorry," sounded from the bedroom. As many times as Harry had said those two words to him, Draco knew that this time he really meant them. He couldn't see his face, but he knew that they were, quite possibly, the most sincere words that the Gryffindor had ever spoken.

"I know," Draco whispered, and he knew Harry hadn't heard him.

And he Apparated away from their..._Harry's_ flat for the last time.

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"_Draco?"_

"_Hmm?"_

"_You...you know I love you, right?"_

"_I assumed so, yes."_

"_And?"_

"_And what?"_

"_Do you love me?"_

"_Of course."_

"_I assumed so."_

_Draco just smiled, pressing a kiss to the palm of Harry's hand._

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Harry wasn't sure how long he sat there at the foot of his bed, sobbing uncontrollably.

And in all actuality, he wasn't sure he would ever find it in himself to move from that spot ever again.

_I'm so hollow baby_

_I'm so hollow_

_I'm so_

_I'm so_

_I'm so hollow_

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_**End**_

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